Union-Tribune file photo
Roseanne Barr's 1990 national anthem in San Diego is a memory she'd rather forget.
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HOLLYWOOD – Roseanne Barr regrets that she ever came to San Diego on that fateful July day in 1990.
But the fallout that followed her rather unconventional rendition of the national anthem at a San Diego Padres game is just one of the many bad memories haunting the former star of ABC's "Roseanne."
With advice from an uncertain number of rabbis and clergy from various denominations, this complex, puzzling, frequently tempestuous woman says she's dealing with that and many other unpleasant episodes from her past.
Among those memories may be her many names. She was born and first became famous as Roseanne Barr. Then, upon her second marriage, to comic Tom Arnold, she was Roseanne Arnold. Then she divorced Arnold and became simply Roseanne. Now she's Roseanne Barr again. Small wonder that many members of an inattentive public confuse her, as she said, with Rosie O'Donnell.
Anyway, Roseanne met with TV critics here the other day to plug her two new comeback programs. The first, beginning Aug. 6 on ABC, is called "The Real Roseanne Show." It will run for seven weeks and chronicle Roseanne's efforts to package and sell "Domestic Goddess," a cooking-and-eating series that begins on the ABC Family cable channel in September.
"Real Roseanne" reveals, among much else, a woman who's monstrously egotistical, endlessly feisty and fussy, yet has a remarkable knack for building a community around herself. Her first husband, Bill Pentland, and his wife, Becky, now stay around as the star's personal assistants.
"Roseanne," which aired from 1989 to 1997, became as famous for her backstage tantrums, and her frequent firing of writers and producers, as for the homey honesty of its stories. Now she says: "I always had a great relationship with ABC, and they've always been great to me."
Susan Lyne, president of ABC Entertainment, says the new Roseanne "has been a dream to work with for us. She's incredibly talented, she has a voice that's different from anyone on television."
Roseanne, 50, certainly looks different. Once reported as high as 214 pounds, her weight is down, she says, to 160. Gastric bypass surgery five years ago, she told the critics, reduced her stomach to the size of a walnut. "So I eat maybe 10 times a day, and it's working."
But from the way she said it, nobody could be sure if she was serious or kidding. It's often difficult getting to the factual life stories of comedians. They tend to exaggerate if it makes a story funnier. It's no doubt true that Roseanne has been consulting with a rabbi. Or two or three. But "hundreds of rabbis"? That didn't seem likely.
Having had a couple of other comeback attempts fail, including a daytime talk show, she said she's learned to "keep my big mouth shut. I shot my mouth off all over the place and it always came back to bite me in the butt by canceled shows and other bad relationships."
Her rabbis, Roseanne said, as well as "Buddhists and stuff, and Christians," have all told her "the exact same thing, which is, 'Be nice, and nicer things will happen for you.' And by God if it ain't true."
Later, a dozen or so critics followed Roseanne into the hallway, and asked if she had any regrets. "There are so many," she said. "A lot of them are personal. I have a lot of regrets for how I acted."
She said she's made some apologies, and "some of them have forgiven me."
Then I told her I'm from San Diego, and she said, "Oh!" with a gasp, obviously remembering July 25, 1990, when she screeched out the national anthem at a Padres game, grabbed her crotch and spit on the ground. The incident made the national news and set off widespread outrage. The first President Bush called it "disgraceful."
Roseanne remained defiant in her 1994 book, "My Lives" – "I'm not Anne Frank, gotta hide out because the PC police are gonna find me and kill me. I'm an American, and that is my song, too. What you gotta be – Pavarotti (who sometimes lip-syncs, by the way), or Liza or Barbra to sing the national anthem?"
"I regret ever going there," she says now. But she still doesn't exactly apologize. "I regret it came out like it did, you know. I was trying to be funny. Sometimes you can't tell if it's funny or not, I guess. I learned that. I was too hip for the room, I think."
